Teachers need to adopt new viewpoints, resources

Kasama gave the following interview to The Nation's Local News Editor Chularat Saengpassa.

Q : How should we prepare our children for the fast-changing world in the next five or 10 years?

Children will need to have higher academic performance and the government is ready to invest in good learning materials for them. The society is also ready to contribute to the educational system. We can now see an incresaing number of alumni going back to help their alma maters.

But more than this, we will need to solve family problems in society. This is our grave concern.

Many children are now left to grow up with grandparents or distant relatives. Child abuse often takes place in such a situation. In a poor family there are also no books, let alone a computer, for children.

While schools are very important in providing quality children, supportive families are vital too. So, I plan to encourage local administrative bodies to help children with family problems. Society must lend a hand to children who don't have a supportive family background.

Q : How has your agency helped children in need?

Last year, I visited many children in their houses and found they badly needed help. Some houses didn't have a bathroom. Some others were so dilapidated there were many holes in the roof. So, I have asked the Cabinet to instruct relevant agencies to extend help when they hear of such cases. The Interior Ministry or the Social Development and Human Security Ministry, for example, can take action. The Cabinet has approved my proposal. I have already told all offices of educational service areas to report children's grievances to the Child Protection Committee. Then, relevant agencies can come to help the children.

Q : What's the Education Ministry's policy on the development of underprivileged children?

We have special measures for underprivileged children. For example, there is now free milk and free lunches. With the free lunches, children from cash-strapped families will want to come to school because they will at the very least get food.

In line with HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, children's quality of life has been our priority when we work on needy schools. We have to pay attention to children's nutrition and health first.

As long as their stomachs remain empty and their health is poor, it's too much to expect them to excel in class. By the way, if their quality of life improves, quality education will be possible.

Our school-development programmes have always focused on substandard schools because their students need help.

A large number of children have to study at substandard schools because they cannot find a good school near their hometown. This year, more than 500 schools have been included in our school-development programmes after they failed to pass our assessment.

Through the programmes, many of these schools have improved and passed the second assessment.

Last year, about 12 per cent of Grade-2 students were illiterate. But this year, we have tested the Grade-3 students-the same group of children- and we have found that the illiteracy rate is at just four or five per cent. We have checked the students' literacy rate not because we want to punish any school. We just want to know where our extra help should extend.

Q : Several indicators, like Onet (Ordinary National Educational Test) scores, suggest education quality has been on the decline. How will you respond to this?

There are many factors involved. First of all, many more children have now entered schools. In the past, just 30 or 40 out of 100 children had educational opportunities and these children were all good students. Anyway, we have now put all children into schools.

This means schools will have to deal with children who don't want to learn and children who have special needs as well - not only eager learners anymore. The second factor is that many good teachers have left the country's service during the past 15 years when the educational system had undergone restructuring efforts.

The third factor is teachers' inability to adjust their teaching styles. Teachers still teach as if there are just good students in classrooms. They still teach as if the students are not from the digital age.

But today, classrooms also have children who are not very good at studying and Internet-browsing children who will easily get bored with blackboards and textbooks.

The last factor is the test design. Today, testing comprises two parts, one with multiple choices and the other with open-ended questions. The multiple-choice test apparently requires children to remember too much detail, while the open-ended section is something children are not familiar with.

When there are open-ended questions, students often argue with teachers too.

Now, we plan to encourage teachers to adopt new viewpoints and new resources like the Internet. We hold forums where teachers can exchange ideas with their peers across the world.

We have also been recruiting administrative staff for schools to ensure that teachers can focus on teaching, not administrative work. We are planning to amend the criteria for academic-rank promotion to ensure teachers focus more on students, not their own academic papers.

Additionally, we have encouraged universities to work closely with schools for the benefit of children.

The five main agencies of the Education Ministry (Obec, the Office of Higher Education Commission, the Office of the Education Council, the Education Ministry's Office of Permanent Secretary, and the Office of Vocational Education) are now also working together. Our focus is not our own agencies, but students.

Now, the heads of all five main agencies meet every Monday for discussions. Our work is now more co-ordinated and we see many good results. For example, we can offer weekend schools for former school dropouts. It's a good alternative.